


exit, pursued by bear

by mcpicktwo



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: BAMF! Drew, Character Study, Gen, Mostly Canon Compliant, sometimes characters that are bad. are good.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24976435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcpicktwo/pseuds/mcpicktwo
Summary: Drew’s been told that she’s lucky that she’s just a daughter of Aphrodite because monsters aren’t as hungry for her. She doesn’t point out that Castor’s skull was cracked open by an enemy demigod. She doesn’t point out that someone at camp has been spoon-feeding Kronos information.Monster is a relative term.
Relationships: Connor Stoll & Drew Tanaka, Silena Beauregard & Drew Tanaka
Comments: 24
Kudos: 155





	exit, pursued by bear

**Author's Note:**

> "the doctor put her hands over my liver / and she told me my resentments getting smaller / no i'm not afraid of hard work / and i did everything i want / i have everything i wanted"  
> — garden song, phoebe bridgers

Traitor. Two syllables. One meaning. A person who betrays a friend.

Lee Fletcher’s golden shroud slowly etches itself into the back of Drew’s mind as she sits in the amphitheater, smoke lazily rising into the air, Violet Banks crying into the sleeve of Drew’s disgustingly orange t-shirt. Violet is from the same town as Lee, and Drew guesses that he was sort of an older brother to her.

Traitor. One meaning, countless deaths. Crushed skulls, vacant eyes, battered pieces of armor with no occupants. Bodies covered in red, dotting the fields like strawberries ready to be harvested. 

Drew had never even liked Lee. But Lee’s dead now, so that doesn’t matter. She’ll never be able to tell him how bad his haircut is, how stupid he looks when he walks around camp with his quiver upside down. He was the only one at camp who took Drew seriously. Didn’t laugh in her face when she asked for lessons in archery. And it’s kind of funny, looking back, that the only person to have taken a chance on Drew is dead. Maybe that’s a metaphor or something.

Lee will never get to go home, rile up that ugly dog of his whose picture hangs above his bunk. Briefly, she wonders who will be the one who has to take it down. Pack up his things. Give them to his mother, who will never see her son’s nauseatingly bright smile again. 

A tear trickles down Drew’s cheek. She lets it fall. 

To her right, Malcolm whispers to Mitchell too conspiratorially to be talking about anything innocent. People often wonder how Drew always seems to know everything that happens at camp, and it’s mostly because everyone else doesn’t know where to look— it’s a trait she inherited from her mother to know when something is out of place, whether that is a strand of hair falling out of a ponytail, smudged lipstick, or hushed voices during a burial rite. 

She’s about to tell both of them to _shut the fuck up_ and _have some decency_ , when she catches: — _didn’t tell me._ Then how do you know _? Because if it wasn’t a big deal, she would’ve told me._ There’s no way there’s a spy at camp, Malcolm. _I’m telling you, something is_ —

Almost immediately, Drew’s eyes flit over to Silena sitting at the edge of the bench, dark eyes glazed over, fingers mindlessly toying with that beautiful charm bracelet of hers. Pollux burns his brother’s purple shroud then, sobbing more than he is speaking. Drew doesn’t know either brother enough to have an opinion on them, but once again, it doesn’t matter. Castor is dead and he isn’t coming back. 

Spy, Drew mouth’s staring at Silena. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking it, because everyone loves Silena. _Drew_ loves Silena. She’s everything Drew isn’t, with her soft lines and kind eyes. Silena’s smile is saccharine and reminds Drew of honey, the way it slowly unfurls. Drew’s smile is more-so a baring of teeth. 

_I spy with my little eye_ , Drew thinks, her gaze dragging over Silena’s stoic demeanor. A hunched back where she usually stands straight, eyes trained on the floor when Silena has no qualms maintaining eye contact. Drew recalls that before there was Charles, there was Luke Cas-something-or-the-other. The demigod leading Kronos’ forces against them. Luke was before Drew’s time, but it is a known fact that he’s a traitor. 

_Traitor traitor traitor._ Drew repeats the words over and over again, reminding herself that they are the reason that Lee will never go to college. They are the reason that Pollux will never hug his brother again. _Traitor traitor traitor._

Silena eyes lift up, catching Drew’s. Silena’s lips turn upwards, attempting to fashion themselves into a supportive smile. Drew can feel Violet's tears seeping into her shirt, can sense Malcolm sneaking away back to his cabin mates. Lee’s golden shroud. Pollux standing up there, crying over his lost twin. 

Silena’s grin falters for the briefest moment, and Drew can feel her heart drop through her seat. In an attempt to tell Silena without _actually_ telling Silena that she’s onto her, Drew does what she does best.

She bares her teeth.

*** 

  
  


Death, Drew learns, is a lot like love. Destructive, all-consuming, strikes when least expected. It makes sense as to why her mother finds Ares so alluring. Love and war are intertwined and oftentimes inseparable. But as June melts into July, Drew finds it completely disconcerting how _normal_ the camp is. Death, it seems, is a lot easier to get over than love. People return to daily activities likes canoeing and archery. One day, Silena begs Drew to cover her afternoon Pegasus session so she can sneak off with Charlie. 

Lee is dead and Silena wants to make out with Charlie. It’s honestly laughable.

Still, Drew waves her hand passive agreement, resulting in Silena squealing in delight. She bends down to plant a wet kiss on Drew’s cheek before darting off towards the forges. She watches Silena’s dainty figure, catching the way her bracelet reflects in the sun. Something is off.

Something is very off.

Drew has had the sickest, most nauseating feeling gnawing away at the back of her throat since the shroud ceremony, begging to be unleashed. _Traitor. Spy._

But she tempers the feeling down, tries to swallow it whole. It makes no sense for Silena to be the spy. Silena loves Camp Half-Blood in the most pure, childlike way possible. She wakes up every morning, stretches her sinewy limbs with a sleepy smile on her face, already excited for the day to come. She lives there year-round so it’s her home in more ways than one. 

Why would she jeopardize that? For some _boy_?

Drew recalls the rite of passage in the Aphrodite cabin. Make someone fall in love with you and break their heart. Silena had refused to do it because she considers it cruel, and it has _always_ frustrated Drew, the way Silena thinks she’s somehow above it all. The rite is cruel, yes, but so is love. So is death. So is life. People underestimate love’s power, and in turn, people underestimate the children of Aphrodite. The rite is a reckoning-- a brutal reminder that love is truly everything. 

Then, Drew thinks of the quiet jingle of the charms on Silena’s bracelet clanking together, creating a sickeningly sweet melody. 

Love is everything to most. But for a select few, it can mean nothing at all. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Luck is something that Drew has an abundance of. She’s lucky that she has a father that loves her, lucky that she has someplace to call home. She attends her sophomore year at Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted, a school that she’s proud to attend because she didn’t even have to charmspeak her way into admission. She’s lucky that she has mortal friends completely separated from the godly world, able to talk about trivial things like teen heartthrobs and _which poster should I tear from this magazine?_

It’s so human and so wonderful, but she still feels guilty because no matter what, she remembers Lee’s stupid, stupid shroud. Months later, the smell of ash is still stuck in her nose. During the winter, she had a dream that he was alive, but he wasn’t the same. He wasn’t a demigod-- he was fully human. He lived and laughed and loved without a care in the world, and somehow that hurt more than seeing his bruised, lifeless body. 

Drew’s been told she’s lucky that she’s _just_ a daughter of Aphrodite because monsters aren’t as hungry for her. She doesn’t point out that Castor’s skull was cracked open by an enemy demigod. She doesn’t point out that someone at _camp_ has been spoon-feeding Kronos information. 

Monster is a relative term. 

*** 

  
  


The next summer, the entire camp is on edge. There’s that prophecy about that kid named Percy. Drew doesn’t know the entirety of it, but she’s listened to enough conversations to get the gist. Something about the Percy kid turning sixteen and holding the fate of the world in his hands. She’s never learned the exact details because no one bothers to tell her anything important. It’s not like they expect anything out of her, or any of her siblings, anyway.

Once, during Capture the Flag, she tried to expose a blind spot in Annabeth’s foolproof plan. Drew attempted to nudge her way to the front, point out that pairing Clarisse and Chris is a terrible idea although they _maintain_ it won’t be a problem, and that they shouldn’t be watching out for _just_ Percy. There are other capable kids on the opposing team, too. Unsurprisingly, Annabeth shrugged her off. 

In the end, their team lost when an unclaimed demigod from Hermes cabin somehow snuck around Clarisse and Chris to steal their flag. No one ever saw them coming. 

Whatever, Drew thinks, applying the final coat of her gold-colored nail polish. Drew isn’t disliked at camp, but she isn’t really liked, either. People assume that Aphrodite kids are stuck-up and rude and _dumb_ , and why is she punished for being what everyone expects her to be? Drew finds no shame in conforming. It’s safer this way.

There are only a handful of people at camp that actively seek her presence, and Connor Stoll is one of them. She passes the bottle to him, blows on her own nails to hasten the drying process. They both sit on the steps to the cabin after dinner, watching the sun fall in a languid diminuendo, wondering how long it will take for the darkness to get them.

“Were you there?” Drew finds herself asking.

“Where?” Connor asks, rightfully lost.

Drew can’t help but roll her eyes. “You know, when Luke revealed his evil plan to the entire camp via IM. Were you there?”

“Oh.” Connor shifts, angling his body away from her. “Yeah. I was.”

She can sense Connor is uncomfortable but doesn't want to drop the topic. Drew knows mostly everything, including the fact that there are whispers among the camp about the Stolls; it's a popular theory that one of them is the spy. Maybe even both. But Drew also knows that the anger Connor feels towards his brother is fierce and hot and unyielding. Connor isn’t the spy, and neither is Travis. She’s sure of it.

“Did you ever have suspicions that Luke was going to go batshit?” Drew inquires, painfully brute. Connor lets out a startled laugh.

He calms down, continues painting his nails. “Honestly… maybe. I knew he was mad, but I didn’t know it’d turn into this. I thought he’d, I don’t know, walk right into Olympus and tell our dad off. Get himself killed, not-- not other people.”

Drew opens her mouth to respond, but Silena steps between them, batting her thick lashes uselessly at Connor.

“Where were you?” Drew demands. “I had to cover your Pegasus session again.”

Silena shies away. “I was—”

“Don’t say you were with Charlie, because I already asked him, and he told me he had no idea where you were.”

“Jeez, Drew. You don’t need to charmspeak me,” Silena chokes out and Drew recoils like she’s been slapped. _I wasn’t even charmspeaking and you know it!_ “I just had a family emergency. I’ll make it up to you, I promise!”

Drew’s about to bite out a sharp retort when she glances around and takes stalk of her surroundings. The campers playing in the volleyball pit have paused their game, members of both cabins nine and eleven unsuccessfully trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. She looks at gorgeous, doe-eyed Silena, in her fitted t-shirt and artfully destroyed denim shorts, hair tied back into a high ponytail. Her lips are trembling as if she’s about to start crying. 

Of course Drew is the villain in this story.

The Luke that Connor knows is dead and buried beneath a rubble of bitterness. The Silena that Drew knows is dead and buried beneath a pile of other bodies. 

Love is everything and nothing and _Connor, tell me I’m not losing my mind here. Tell me you can see it, too._

*** 

Charlie is dead. Charlie is dead. Charlie is dead. No matter how many times Drew repeats the simple fact to herself, it doesn’t seem true. He was just there, at camp, ruffling Drew’s hair because he knows how much she hates it. Oh gods, Charlie is _dead_. 

The news ripples through the camp like wildfire, destroying everything in its path. The war has already started, whether they are ready or not.

That night, Silena crawls into Drew’s bunk, silently crying into her chest. It reminds Drew of the way Violet folded into her arms after Lee died, their bodies melding until they were one. Drew doesn’t know what time it is, only that it’s late.

“Drew,” Silena whispers against her. “There’s a spy.”

“What?” Drew asks, feigning disbelief. 

“Someone in the camp has been telling Kronos everything. That’s how… that’s how they knew about Percy and-- Charlie.” 

And this mental back and forth, tug-of-war game Drew’s been playing with herself has to end here. Silena’s love for Charlie mimicked the way she did her hair. Every day, she woke up, chose to do it, and enjoyed it. It was deliberate. It was taxing. And it was worth it, even in the end. There’s no way Silena would jeopardize that for _Luke._ A boy she barely knew over a boy she loved with her entire heart and more. 

But.

“Silena,” Drew says, her voice dripping with power, acceptance, and everything else she's ever wanted. “Do you know who the spy is?”

It’s silent for so long that Drew thinks Silena had fallen asleep. Several beats later, she answers with a resounding:

“Yes.”

*** 

Ironically for Michael Yew’s tiny stature, he is a gigantic pain in the ass.

“ _Di immortales_ ,” she mutters. “The stupid chariot isn’t worth more than the end of the world as we know it!”

“To you!” Michael and Clarisse la Rue yell simultaneously. Drew rolls her eyes and anxiously chews her gum, entirely aware of the obnoxious smacking sound she’s making. She can’t help it, though. 

She’s never been in actual battle before. Never even been on a quest. In fact, she doesn’t think any of her siblings have held up a sword to do anything other than glance at their reflection. And it’s not totally their fault either, because Ares kids always complain that Aphrodite kids are _too prissy_ to spar against and other campers say dumb stuff like _afraid you’ll break a nail, Barbie?_

Which, yeah, they are. That’s why they want to spar when they don’t have their nails done. So. Not their fault. But they’re suited up in armor, ready to go, and it is so poetic that the children of the war god are the ones refusing to go to war. Because of a stupid chariot. 

Michael sighs. “Fine, you know what? You can have it! It isn’t that important!”

“Oh, so we can have it when it’s not important?” Clarisse growls. Everyone else groans. “No way. You can take that chariot and shove it up your--”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Chiron interrupts. “Clarisse, are you firm in your decision to stay at camp?”

“Yes.” Clarisse crosses her beefy arms over her chest. 

Drew throws up in her arms in defeat. It’s unfair because if Drew or Violet were to throw this hissy fit, everyone would hate them. They would be called selfish. And everyone would be right. But because it’s Clarisse and her annoyingly large muscles, no one cares.

Dew takes note.

  
  


*** 

  
  


On the ride to Manhattan, Michael stares at Drew. It is very unnerving. 

“What?” she snaps. 

“Why do you have Lee’s quiver?” Michael asks, and he doesn’t sound angry. Mostly, he sounds sad. Michael is only the head counselor of the Apollo cabin because Lee is dead, Drew remembers. She twists her lips to the side, sinks a little in her seat. 

“Mind your business.” Her words are more of an order than a suggestion, the air thick with persuasion. 

Michael’s eyes glaze over and he drops the subject.

  
  


*** 

  
  


Percy tells Silena to take their cabin to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. 

“Oh my gods,” Drew drawls sarcastically. “Fifth Avenue is _so_ on our way! We could accessorize, and monsters like, totally hate the smell of Givenchy.”

“No delays. Well... the perfume thing, if you think it’ll work,” Percy says, in all seriousness. Drew blinks at him. 

Her sisters giggle at Percy’s obliviousness, and Drew is astounded that this is the guy tasked with being the so-called hero of the prophecy. But Drew still follows the line of her sisters who smack obnoxious kisses on Percy’s cheek, just to rile up Annabeth. Percy gives the Holland Tunnel to the Hephaestus cabin, the 59th Street Bridge to Annabeth’s siblings, and the Hunters materialize out of nowhere to the claim the Lincoln Tunnel. 

Drew hates the Hunters, in large part because of how they think they’re better than everyone because they swore off romantic love forever. How they’re better than Aphrodite kids, especially.

 _You are not better than me,_ Drew thinks. _You are thousands of years old, stuck in the body of a twelve-year-old with terrible fashion sense._

Percy raises his sword in the air in an attempt to look like a leader. To Drew, he looks like a scared fifteen-year-old boy. A ray of sunlight hits the celestial bronze, and it glistens in the low sunlight. Riptide, Drew thinks. She doesn't know how she knows that.

For Olympus, or whatever. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Twin sisters Jada and Gabrielle Briar have set up perfume bombs along the entrance of the tunnel. Drew is perched on top of the entrance herself, bow and arrow in hand, ready to shoot down anything that straggles out from beneath her.

“So there seriously aren't any monsters coming?” Naomi Salvatore asks, curling her blonde hair around her finger. 

All of Drew’s siblings are legitimately sitting down on the street, swords and daggers thrown on the pavement. Naomi is the only one standing, balanced on the roof of an eighteen-wheeler. Drew has half a mind to tell her to stop being careless and get down, because she’s making herself a prime target for any aerial attacks. But Silena has lulled them into a false sense of security, telling them that most monsters are congregated along the other bridges. A small part of Drew thinks Silena's being told false information-- a way to tie up loose ends if Kronos declares victory.

“I’m not complaining,” Jada says, tossing her long braids over her shoulder. “Should we call Annabeth?”

“I don’t--” Silena begins, but she’s cut off by Jada's scream.

“Drew! _Now!_ ”

An arrow whizzes into the air, but it’s not Drew’s. The scene unfolds slowly, and Drew isn’t Drew any longer, her mind extracting itself from her limbs like a guest who has overstayed their welcome. She’s watching everything from outside her body like she’s at the movies. The arrow is coming from the tunnel, she realizes.

It whispers quietly, glides through the air, makes a nasty sound as it lodges itself in Naomi’s arm. She crumples, falling over like a stack of cards, and it is so hauntingly familiar that it snaps Drew back to reality.

Mindlessly, Drew points her own bow down to the perfume bombs below her. _Archery is a slow dance between you and your target,_ Lee had told her. A slow dance. She releases the tension in her shoulders, makes sure not to grip the bow. She leaves room for breathing, looks her partner in the eye.

Drew lets her arrow fly. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


A star-studded sky, the overpowering smell of the carnations that sit in the window of the Aphrodite cabin. The scent chokes her, wrapping itself in tendrils around her throat and she can’t _breathe_. Gasping, Drew falls to the ground, but she sinks straight through the pavement. A dark body of water gapes open before her, and her limbs cut through the air like knives. She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. Instead, she closes her eyes and braces herself for the impact. 

Drew lands on something soft. Reluctantly, she opens her eyes and is nearly blinded how _white_ everything is. Thunder rumbles in the distance and rain starts pouring from _somewhere._ Drew isn’t exactly sure where, because there are no clouds, and everything is startlingly bright. 

She brings a hand to her cheek, stares at the drops on her fingertips. The rain glistens with gold, and an image of a scythe comes into view. 

Everything blurs. 

Drew is six when she encounters her first monster. She’s ten when she runs from a feather-shooting bird, fourteen when she kills a cyclops on Half-Blood Hill. She doesn’t know if she actually killed it, but she was screaming and crying and _make it stop, please stop, everyone stop!_ The cyclops froze in its place, hands raised like he was going to swat her. 

She learns what charmspeaking is hours later when she sits in the Big House, a blanket draped over her shoulders and hot chocolate in her hand. People skirt around her uneasily, and she guesses it’s because they’re scared of her and what she can do. 

“Drew,” a voice says from her above her. She looks up and she’s no longer in the Big House, but her childhood room. Beauty magazines blanket her desk, clothes thrown haphazardly across her floor. Sitting on her bed is a woman that’s scarily beautiful, and it’s uncomfortable to look at her because it's impossible to decipher her features. They're constantly shifting.

“Mom,” Drew breathes out, reaching forward. 

At first, Aphrodite’s smile is sweet. But the more it blossoms, the more predatory it appears. A red liquid drips from her canines. Drew stops in her tracks.

“Drew, my dearest love,” she says, standing up. “You are my smartest daughter. I have so much I want to tell you, but I am afraid it has to wait. You have to wake up now.”

Drew frowns. “What?”

“Wake up,” Aphrodite commands. Drew feels the familiar sensation of falling.

“Wake up,” a voice pleads. Drew blinks awake and Will Solace is standing over her, his hands on her shoulders. She has no idea where she is. 

“Get off of me,” Drew mumbles, weakly trying to remove Will’s grip.

“Oh gods, we thought you were dead!” another voice cries out. Drew watches as Naomi bounds towards her, right arm in a sling. As Naomi hugs her, Drew looks around and realizes she’s in the camp infirmary. When Naomi pulls back, she makes a point to look Drew in the eye. “You were unconscious for two days. No one could figure out what happened.”

“What _did_ happen?” Drew asks.

Naomi tells her the story: her arrow hit the perfume bombs, severely wounding the enemy demigods that were attempting to make their way through the tunnel. But something happened with Drew, because she fell off her perch, disappeared mid-air, and reappeared in front of the Plaza. It’s not the strangest thing that happened during the battle that they apparently won, so no one is too concerned. All that matters is that Drew is still breathing. 

“My head is killing me,” she complains as she tries to sit up. Will forces her back down.

“You have to save your energy for the-- for the shroud ceremony,” Will manages to say, eyes darting around the room. 

Drew’s heart skips a beat, and she’s always known, but she didn’t want to believe it. That Silena could cause this much damage and heartache and death and pain. That she could deliver her friends to monsters on a silver platter. A star-studded sky, the smell of carnations. 

They don’t have to say it, but Drew knows. Drew has always known.

  
  


*** 

  
  


Silena’s shroud is hot pink and the stench almost makes Drew gag. _Traitor. Spy. Enemy. Monster._

Annabeth wraps her arm around Drew in what she thinks is a supportive gesture, asks Drew if she has any final words. She steps up to the burning shroud, wonders how beautiful Silena looks with drakon poison marring her face. Lee and Castor and Charlie and Pollux and Michael and Georgia and Skylar and Devon and so many more lives lost, but everyone is focused on Silena and her kind eyes and dangerous, dangerous smile. 

So Drew doesn’t know what to say. Silena was her sister. She taught Drew how to reuse mascara bottles and how to do those Dutch braids that Drew still can’t, for the life of her, do. Silena _was_ above it all, and maybe that was her downfall. You can’t escape Aphrodite-- you can’t escape love. It’s in the way the sea breeze blows on a summer evening, it’s in a baby’s first bout of laughter. It’s in the way that even after everything, Drew can feel tears welling up in her eyes.

She doesn’t let them fall. For the first time in her life, she is at a loss for words.

Drew is torn between _I hate you_ and _they never saw you coming_. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Drew tears the Aphrodite cabin down and rebuilds it brick by brick. It’s her right, it’s her destiny, and it’s her coping with the fact that her sister is dead. It’s her constructing a castle that Silena has never touched, where Silena’s lies can’t reach her.

 _You are my smartest daughter,_ Aphrodite had said. Drew laughs at the memory.

There's a reason she didn't say favorite.

*** 

  
  


Piper McLean makes a big entrance upon her arrival, and Drew already hates her. Maybe not Piper, specifically, but girls _like_ Piper. The ones who think they’re better than her just because they don’t care about their appearance. And Drew _knows_ that Piper doesn’t care about her appearance. Drew can also tell that Piper is hiding something, and Piper isn’t the only one. 

She can see Jason’s soul right through his glacial eyes. She can tell he’s important, but he doesn’t belong. A puzzle piece out of place. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So she loops her arm through his, trying to choose him in the way that Annabeth chose Percy. 

It doesn’t work, though.

Piper is claimed that evening after dinner, the symbol of Aphrodite rotating over her head, almost mocking Drew. A new sister, new secrets, and in the end, more broken hearts. She’s been down this road before, could navigate it with her eyes closed, knows the type of gravel it was paved with.

The first night with Piper in the cabin, Drew sees a shadow dart past out of the corner of her eye, their hands raised like they’re ready to get her. The shadow that haunts her used to be taller and wider, but now it’s dainty. She closes her eyes and the shadow disappears, but the faint smell of honey lingers long into the morning. 

  
  


*** 

  
  


Drew has learned that it’s better to be feared than loved. And Drew knows this because she knows that love clouds judgment, alters memories, changes even the most stubborn of minds. She saw how love caused people to ignore Silena’s constant sneaking off, her sudden interest in camp layout, her stupid charm bracelet. Fear is straightforward. Fear is controllable. 

Fear leads to rebellion, not treachery. 

A glance in the bathroom mirror showcases Drew's unblemished skin, perfectly coiled hair, and long eyelashes. An uncomfortable sensation settles in her gut and twists until she feels like keeling over. Drew could've _said_ something. She could've done something. What did they have on Silena, to make her do what she did? What did they threaten her with? 

_See Charlie._

Drew's knees buckle beneath her and she falls down to the floor like a wilted flower. Her hands press deep into the linoleum tiling, reminds herself that she is real and this has happened and it's not Silena's fault. It's not her fault it's not her fault it's not her fault--

_It's not my fault._

Lee's stupid hair, Michael's soft hands, Castor's bright cheeks. _It's not my fault_. 

Although she prides herself on being all hard edges and brute truths, there is a certain softness to the way Drew moves through the world. A feather-light kiss to the top of Violet's head as she shakes in her nightmares, the gentle cupping of Dante's chin as she applies liquid eyeliner on him. In a world that was never made for them, it is essential to find solace in something or maybe even someone. Drew finds solace in her cabin, a place that is undeniably hers. She finds solace in Silena's old sheets and empty mascara bottles. It helps, to think that Charlie and Silena found each other, in the forges and in the strawberry fields and in life and death. 

Hesitantly, Drew stands up, heavy gaze slowly finding their way to her reflection.

_Traitor. Spy. Enemy. Monster._

*** 

  
  
  
Drew lays in a canoe with Connor, stares up at the uncomfortably clear blue sky, their legs tangled together like forgotten headphone wires. Someone is playing their guitar by the shore, and the melody is vaguely familiar. The canoe sits idly upon the water, and Drew can feel herself floating, can feel her soul stretching thin.

People think that Drew and Connor are one of the oddest pairings at camp, and that's because Drew doesn't really like anybody and Connor is mostly seen as an extension of his brother. But Drew likes Connor because with him, what you see is what you get. He doesn't hide his mischievous smile or restless fingers. Connor prides himself on being a schemer, and Drew can always see him coming. 

"We should start a club," Connor says suddenly. Drew raises an eyebrow even though he can't see her. "The Became Head Counselors When The Old One Died club."

She ponders this. "Hmm, no. You became head counselor because Luke left, not 'cause he died."

"Well, he was dead to me." Connor sounds impossibly young. She ignores this. 

"We should invite Will," Drew suggests. Michael's body still hasn't been found.

"Yeah."

Water splashes into their boat, effectively bringing Drew back to Earth. 

***

"She snores so loudly--"

"I do _not_ want kitchen duty--"

"Oh, look, she's waking up--"

Virtually the entire cabin stands over Piper's bunk as her eyes slowly open. Drew guesses she got back from her quest late last night. Whoop-dee-do. They still have places to be and obligations to fulfill. Drew runs a tight ship and she doesn't like getting in trouble. Drew _is_ the trouble.

"Morning," Piper chirps, her tone entirely too casual, with a pleased smile slipping onto her face. She swings her feet off the side of her bed and Drew takes a step back. "Beautiful day."

Drew crosses her arms over her chest. "You're going to make us late for breakfast, which means _you_ have to clean up for cabin inspection."

Which, honestly, isn't even that bad of punishment because half of the occupants are complete neat freaks.

A strangle look crosses Piper's face, and Drew is bored. All she wants to do is get breakfast. Contrary to popular belief, Drew doesn't pull rules out of thin air. And with inhumane speed, Piper reaches beneath her pillow, unsheathes her dagger, and presses it against the underside of Drew's chin. She gasps, helplessly.

_"What are we supposed to do with her, again?" someone asks. A sword is pressed against her throat._

_"Not kill her!" another voice cries out. "Just put her to sleep."_

_"Okay." The sword is removed and Drew sucks in a long breathe. A hand presses against her face. "_ Sleep."

_"Wait, she's falling!"_

_"Do something! Hecate's_ your _mom--"_

"-- I've been on more quests than you and I do believe that I'll make a better senior counselor than you," Piper rambles. Drew's not even sure what Piper’s talking about, but she's frozen in place, and Piper takes that as a sign that she's winning. She's wrong. "Silena Beauregard knew that this is a camp, not Dictators-R-Us. Being a child of Aphrodite isn't about looking good, but feeling good, and making others feel good, too. That's why Silena was a hero in the end. So, duel?"

_You don't know a thing about Silena. You will never know anything about Silena._

Drew wants to scream until her throat is hollowed out, but decides to do something else instead. She clamps her fingers over Piper's wrist, twists Piper's arm behind her back, sending the dagger to the floor. Piper's dark eyes widen comically, and it's laughable, how Piper thinks she's the only one willing to get dirty.

Silena didn't just have to die for Drew to become head counselor. Drew had to survive the war, too. 

"Duel."

***

Drew bests Piper in two out of the three rounds. A quelled rebellion.

"Okay, you win," Piper concedes, still laying on the ground. Drew rolls her eyes, studies her nails. She totally has to redo them after this.

As Piper recuperates, Drew notices the way other campers have formed a circle around the arena. They seem to find it peculiar that not one, but two Aphrodite girls are _(gasp!)_ sparring. With amusement, she watches as Connor pickpockets Naomi's lipgloss. Naomi is none the wiser.

As Drew begins to return her attention to Piper, who still hasn't gotten up, she makes eye contact with Sherman Yang from the Ares cabin. Sherman smiles approvingly, and Drew doesn't _want_ his approval. She just wants him to understand that the children of Aphrodite are capable of everything. Love and destruction, beauty and carnage and everything in between. Love is the reason they won the war. It's the reason Silena is dead. So Drew does what she does best.

She bares her teeth.

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are very much appreciated


End file.
